


Alone with Zuko

by hearmerory



Series: Change of Address [6]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Ableism, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Autistic Zuko (Avatar), Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Meltdown, Oblivious Zuko (Avatar), Protective Sokka (Avatar), Romantic Fluff, Sensory Overload, Sokka just wants to go on a date and the gang is just... everywhere, Sokka says fuck a lot, Zuko (Avatar) whump, Zuko is an Awkward Turtleduck, Zuko's Childhood (Avatar), don't take a blind girl to the movies, don't take zuko to the movies either, what kind of plan is this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:34:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26609110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hearmerory/pseuds/hearmerory
Summary: For some unfathomable reason, it was almost impossible to get Zuko alone in the weeks after their first kiss.So Sokka had invited Zuko to see a movie. And the completely oblivious, perfect, adorably stupid dunderhead hadinvited everyone else. Sokka really should have made it clearer.By then, though, he was trapped.
Relationships: Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Series: Change of Address [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1928572
Comments: 31
Kudos: 761





	Alone with Zuko

For some unfathomable reason, it was almost impossible to get Zuko alone in the weeks after their first kiss.

Sokka had tried getting him to teach him sword fighting, but his Uncle had tagged along, insisting that Zuko needed to be supervised around the weapons. It wasn’t until Sokka had watched the other boy demonstrate with the swords that he’d realized Iroh meant that he needed to be stopped if he got too excited and forgot that his heart didn’t work, not that he was going to do himself any damage with the sharp blades.

And sure, he’d managed to sneak in their second kiss while Iroh wasn’t looking, but they hadn’t had the chance to _talk_.

Sokka had even tried at school. He and Zuko were the only ones in their grade from their friend group, so it should have been easy.

But he’d found that between the gang, his three separate sports teams, his homework, and the classes that they had to attend because this wasn’t some teen romance movie where they never had to study, they didn’t have a single minute of alone time all week.

So he’d invited Zuko to see a movie. And the completely oblivious, perfect, adorably stupid dunderhead had invited everyone else. Sokka should have made it clearer.

By then, though, he was trapped.

Toph could have at least let him sit _next_ to Zuko. But she insisted that she needed them on either side of her, so she could rest her head in Sokka’s lap and her feet in Zuko’s. Apparently seeing a movie with no audio description was less of a fun activity for the blind than Sokka had originally _not at all thought about because she wasn’t supposed to be invited, dammit_.

He hadn’t realized until he was spurting butter onto his popcorn, grinning at his perpetually confused Zuko, that the other boy had never been to see a movie before.

Sokka considered this one of the highest forms of sacrilege, and had ranted all the way from the concession stand to their assigned seats about the utter madness of Iroh’s parenting techniques.

The man had had Zuko for close enough to four years, if you ignored the six months he’d spent back with his father, for Tui and La’s sake! He could have at least introduced his nephew to the fine art of hiding dollar store snacks in a coat pocket and sneaking them into some black and white movie about tea and board games.

Toph kept digging her elbow into his stomach as the opening credits started. Aang sat on his other side, sharing popcorn with his sister and grinning like a love sick puppy.

The movie started excellently, in Sokka’s view. They launched directly into a massive car chase, the protagonist driving over rooftops and down staircases in completely impossible maneuvers that had Sokka gasping at every turn.

“Fuck, Toph, _what_?” He finally broke as her bony little elbow stabbed rather forcibly into his groin.

“You should probably start paying more attention to your boyfriend,” she whispered casually, raising her feet to demonstrate Zuko’s empty seat.

“Shit, where’d he go?” Sokka’s heart skipped a beat. Dammit, he could barely hear Toph’s whispers over the crashing and banging echoing from the surround sound speakers.

“I don’t know, Sokka, I can’t see!” Toph snapped quietly. “His heart was going crazy though. He took off a few of minutes ago.”

“Shit,” Sokka said again, carefully moving Toph’s head off his lap and standing up.

The person in the seat behind him gave him a death glare as he walked away.

Sokka practically exploded through the swing doors into the corridor, looking around for Zuko.

Almost instantly, he spotted a small group of staff near the corner, clearly hovering and discussing something.

Sokka covered the ground going over to them in four quick strides, trepidation rising in his chest.

“We should call the cops,” one of the younger attendants suggested.

“Yeah, he’s clearly out of his mind. Might be on drugs or something.” Another nodded his head.

“Bet he’s crazy,” a bored looking girl looked towards the corner with a vaguely interested smirk.

“Hey!” Sokka interjected as he reached them, “are you talking about—”

“Is he yours?” The second attendant jerked a thumb towards the corner and a Sokka looked over to see Zuko leaning into it, his back to the room.

Sokka’s heart sank. Zuko was mumbling to himself, his hands fluttering wildly at his sides as he rhythmically hit his head against the wall.

“Is he my what, exactly?” Sokka growled. “He’s a fucking person, if you didn’t notice. He doesn’t _belong_ to anyone.”

“Alright, alright, I was just asking. If he’s not yours, we’re going to call the cops.”

“He’s not high,” he snapped, “or crazy! He’s fucking autistic and you should really Google it, it’s not that fucking complicated.”

Zuko made a high pitched moaning sound, so quiet that Sokka almost missed it, and Sokka shoved the theater staff out of the way to get to him, shooing them away with an irritated hand wave behind his back.

“Hey, Zuko,” he said softly, leaning against the wall next to the shorter boy.

Zuko tapped his head against the wall again, slightly less hard. Sokka winced.

“You don’t look so comfy here, bud. Can you tell me what’s up?”

There was a long moment of quiet, punctuated only by Zuko’s ragged breathing.

“Too bright,” he whispered into the wall, “too loud.”

“Yeah, I feel you. That car chase? With the explosions? I swear the walls were shaking!”

Zuko nodded, thwacking his head against the wall again.

Sokka bit his lip, holding himself firmly back from just gathering the other boy up in his arms and hugging the pain away. He knew it wouldn’t work on him like it did on their other friends.

“Babe... do you _want_ to be in the corner? Is it making you feel better?”

Zuko shook his head wildly, his eyes still screwed shut, his teeth digging hard into his lower lip, leaving deep indentations and a small trickle of blood.

Sokka sucked in a breath. Because if Zuko wasn’t doing it to feel better, he was probably doing it to punish himself. And he had learned punishment from his father.

Sokka just hoped the head bashing was Zuko’s own addition.

He hated that he felt it might not be.

“You can come out, if you want,” Sokka ran his hand through his wolf tail nervously.

Zuko took a shuddering inhale and shook his head.

“Okay. You don’t have to. I think you’d be more comfortable, though. We can sit on the floor, right here. We don’t have to go back inside the theater.”

“But... but... I have to stand here,” Zuko whispered.

“You said it wasn’t making you feel better,” Sokka said gently. “Maybe we should try something else?”

He hated watching the confusion and anger and pain flit across the unscarred side of Zuko’s face, the only portion he could see as he buried his nose into the corner.

“But... I gotta... I have to...”

“You don’t have to do anything, babe,” Sokka whispered, “only what makes you comfortable.”

“No,” Zuko snapped, thwacking his head back into the wall. He wobbled slightly, catching himself with a hand. “No, I have to stop being such a fucking baby.”

“You’re not being a baby,” Sokka sighed. “We can do whatever feels good.”

“But... but this... this is what I... what _he_ did, every time, and it’s the routine, it’s how I’m _supposed_ to deal with it, and I _can’t_ deal with it without doing _something_ , and that’s what I _do_ , because that’s what _he_ did, and I don’t _want_ to and it doesn’t make me _feel better_ but I don’t know what else to _do_ and I need it to _stop_!” Sokka flinched as he smashed his head again.

“I know it’s a routine, and that’s important to you, but not all routines are good ones, babe. This feels like a scary routine.”

“Everything’s _touching_ me, Sokka,” he whined, so quietly Sokka had to lean in closer. “Get it off me.’

“Nothing’s touching you, babe,” Sokka tried. Zuko shoved his face further into the corner and pawed ineffectually at his belt buckle.

Sokka’s eyes widened in realization.

“Okay, buddy, we’re not stripping in the middle of a movie theater,” he had to draw a line somewhere, and that seemed like a reasonable place to do it. “How about you and me just go sit in the car, yeah? We can just wait for the others to be done. There’s a McDonald’s like a two minute drive away. We could get some ice cream. And if you want to take off some clothes, you can do it in the car. Okay?”

Zuko nodded after a moment, and extracted himself from the corner, peeling his face away from the wall.

Sokka held in a sigh as he took in the red patch on his forehead that would almost certainly bruise, and the small trickle of blood from where he’d bitten hard into his lip.

Zuko wrapped his arm around Sokka’s shoulder, and let himself be led out of the building.

The cool air hit his face, and he shuddered, unable to even tell if it was nice or not.

His skin was burning, and he still felt the crawling sense of _wrong_ on him. He need to scratch, to clench, to bite, to hurt, to make it _stop._

He clung to Sokka, digging the nails of his other hand into his palm.

The car was only a few moments away, and he collapsed into the passenger seat when Sokka opened the door, immediately reaching out to the driver’s side to wait for Sokka’s hand.

Their hands clasped as soon as Sokka sat down, the perfect pressure grounding him slightly.

His belt dug into his stomach.

His t-shirt clung to his back with cold sweat.

His shoes felt too small.

He tugged his hand out of Sokka’s and clawed at his belt buckle, tilting his hips to pull it out of his jeans. He threw it into the back seat and yanked his t-shirt over his head, throwing that too.

He leaned over to pull of his shoes, releasing his feet to the air. The shoes followed into the back seat.

He stayed bent over, his face between his knees, and breathed.

He ignored the weird noises Sokka was making, and focused on counting the breaths.

Sokka _stared_.

Somehow, seeing Zuko’s back was both so much worse and so much better than he’d feared. From his friend’s reactions, and from the story he’d heard about Zuko’s face, he’d almost been expecting hundreds of scars to litter the pale expanse of his back.

He’d half hoped that there would be no evidence at all. That the only real scar had come from the burn.

For some reason, the three straight white lines diagonally bisecting the pale skin, and the little group of tiny circular burns at the base of his spine, was worse than both scenarios.

Sokka firmly pulled his eyes away from the damage, focusing his gaze on the back of Zuko’s head.

“There we go, buddy,” he said soothingly. “Does that feel any better?”

Zuko hummed quietly, keeping his head down.

They sat in silence together for a minute, Sokka taking his own deep breaths.

“M’sorry,” Zuko moaned into his knees. “Didn’t mean to freak out.”

“It’s fine,” Sokka shrugged, “I didn’t really want to see that movie anyway. And Aang and Katara were giggling every time they reached for popcorn. I was kinda glad to get away.”

“Okay,” he whispered.

“Do you want ice cream?” Sokka reclined slightly in his seat, putting his hands behind his head. “You’d probably have to put your shirt back on for a minute, but you won’t need shoes if we go through the drive through.”

“No,” Zuko grunted.

“No to ice cream, or no to t-shirts?”

“My t-shirt’s all sweaty,” Zuko sat up and leaned back into the seat. His face flushed slightly with the admission.

“I have a sweater in the trunk if you’d rather have that.” Zuko’s cheek darkened even further at the prospect of wearing Sokka’s sweater, and Sokka grinned knowingly. “Real boyfriend-y, huh?”

Zuko nodded.

“If... if you don’t... if you don’t mind...” he stammered, the back of his neck flushing too.

“Damn you’re pretty,” Sokka whispered under his breath. He landed a chaste kiss to the underside of Zuko’s jaw, right under the scar, and leapt out of the car to grab his sweater.

Finally, a whole hour and a half of uninterrupted time.

**Author's Note:**

> I tried real hard to just give them a nice moment, but the angst crept up on me.
> 
> There's some dark shit in the next two installments. They’ll be dead dove.
> 
> (Edit. Actually, the next one is way less intense than I thought it would be. The one after is the one we gotta look out for)


End file.
